1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanical couplings, and particularly to a spherical joint having an internal brake.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous ball and socket joints having manual joint locking mechanisms exist. Such mechanisms are usually very complex and due to the manual locking are not suitable for robotic or parallel kinematic machine operations. Even lockable joint devices linked to hydraulic systems may not be suitable for robotic applications, or the like. Moreover, ball joints with detent stopping action do not lock to an arbitrarily desired position, and therefore are not precise enough for robotic machine applications. It would be very desirable to overcome the aforementioned problems caused by the use of existing ball joint mechanisms.
Thus, a spherical joint with internal brake solving the aforementioned problems is desired.